LL-L: "Language varieties" LOWLANDS-L, 26.FEB.2000 (09) [E]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 26.FEB.2000 (09) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: G Halliday [G.Halliday at xtra.co.nz]
Subject: LL-L: "Language varieties" LOWLANDS-L, 26.FEB.2000 (04) [E]

"Ian James Parsley" <parsley at highbury.fsnet.co.uk> wrote

> Subject: "Etymology" LOWLANDS-L, 25.FEB.2000 (04) [E]

> I believe David Crystal's _Encyclopedia of the English Language_
> confirms my
> suspicion that in fact there are no regional accents in Australia.
> Despite
> local beliefs to the contrary (concerning particularly the /a/ in
> "dance"),
> countless research projects have tried to find regional differences, be
> it
> in pronunciation or vocabulary, but all have failed.

The situation is not quite so simple.

See David Crystal's _Encyclopedia of the English Language_

p.350

"Statements about accent uniformity are surprising...Such variation
undoubtably exists, as the above authors themselves go on to recognize, and
terms such as uniformity must therefore be interpreted with caution -
meaning only the absence of variation which can be explained solely on
geographical grounds."

Like other forms of English class variables can vary in different geographic
communities. Crystal gives a table showing the regional variation, "Emerging
Regional Differences", in the use of the vowel in words like dance for the
main cities in the East and these are in Crystal's words "very clear, and
are striking..". p.351.

He also adds in relation to lexis:

p.352

"The amount of regional lexical variation within Australia is unknown, but
is certainly larger than is traditionally thought."

Readers might like to look at the article mentioned in my previous posting
by Bryant, "The South-East Lexical Usage Region of Australian English" and
Ramson's "Regionalsim in Australian English". (Ramson is the Editor of the
Australian National Dictionary.) Both are in the Australian Journal of
Linguistics Vol 9.

Geordie Halliday

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